


The Self-Consistency Principle

by TheLastNero



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, First Kiss, M/M, Protective Tom Riddle, Sane Tom Riddle, Temporal Paradox, Time Loop, Time Travel, Tom Riddle-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:06:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26233888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastNero/pseuds/TheLastNero
Summary: Tom reluctantly falls in love with new transfer student Harry Potter in the year 1942. When this leads to a paradox in time, he must find a way to fix it, as well as convince Harry that he can be trusted, or risk losing both Harry and his own humanity.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 13
Kudos: 129
Collections: Tomarry Reverse Big Bang 2020





	The Self-Consistency Principle

**Author's Note:**

> Based off @irafook's beautiful artwork. It's embedded in the fic, but you can also see it here (https://irafook.tumblr.com/post/628087580513255424/done-for-tomarry-reverse-big-bang-thelastnero).
> 
> Betaread by @thepinkjellyfish. Thank you!
> 
> I don't yet know how long this will be, and have done very little planning compared to my other works. This is largely experimental, with a lot of internal monologue focusing on how Tom's mind works. I'm excited to see where it goes, though!

_The closer we become, the more we hurt one another._

Love, love, love-- a frivolous ideal so obsessively sought after, while simultaneously being so pointless, if not outright dangerous. Its benefits did not outweigh its serious consequences in any form. Why one would want to fall in love, or even believe such a thing existed, was beyond Tom.

It was a delusion dreamt up by those of lesser minds that were tainted by a relentless optimism and naivety, by those who did not yet know the true, harsh nature of the world-- that we're all alone from our birth until our death. Tom, however, had no intention of dying and held no such delusions. At least, once upon a time he didn't. Harry had been the first to plant the seed of doubt within his mind. 

Others had tried, of course, but failed. That hypocrite Dumbledore tried the first time they met, and countless instances afterward, but each attempt only served to aggravate Tom further. The man tried to convince him with empty platitudes such as the so-called golden rule, but Tom saw through his words even if he didn’t quite understand why yet. It was guilt that led Dumbledore to believe he could fix lowly orphan Tom Riddle, guilt and fear of another Dark Lord, not genuine empathy or well-wishes. The man who tried to persuade him that not everyone was selfish proved to simply be just as self-serving in the end as he vilified Tom for being.

Over the years, as he transformed from lowly orphan to scholarly student to charismatic Minister-of-Magic-to-Be, countless others tried to win his affections. Some claimed to be in love with him, some professed their lust in dark corners with invitations of trysts with no strings attached. He declined all politely, having no need for such distractions. He’d seen what love had done to his pathetic mother, after all. Was it really true love? What was true love, in actuality? Everyone seemed to think their love was true and superior to everyone else’s, but all Tom saw was incessant infatuation with little substance beyond the hormones that seemed to light everyone’s loins the instant puberty started. 

Perhaps if he cared what others thought about him, he may have worried over the fact he’d never felt anything similar for another person. But in the end, it had seemed beneficial more than anything that he hadn’t. He’d seen how others embarrassed themselves over their affections and was glad to avoid such a thing. He had a reputation to maintain, after all. Love seemed to be merely an inconvenient chemical reaction in the brain. He thought himself above the physical impulse that others proclaimed ‘love,’ once again proving his superiority over not just muggles, but his wizarding peers as well.

Harry threw a wrench in all his plans, it seemed, though not at first. Tom had initially thought it odd that a transfer student would appear at the beginning of his fifth year of all times, newly sorted into Slytherin. It was 1942, at the height of both the Great War and the Global Wizarding War. Harry Potter had apparently been orphaned by the latter and was on the run from Grindelwald’s forces and sought shelter at Hogwarts. As prefect, Tom introduced the boy to the school, though he hadn’t appeared to need an introduction whatsoever. Odd, but not noteworthy enough to warrant attention all on its own. Harry hadn’t been an amazing student in their shared classes, save Defense Against the Dark Arts, put far too much stake in Quidditch for his own good, was quiet but needlessly defensive of all things muggle and muggle-born, and didn’t have any political connections warranting Tom’s friendship. He was politely distant to everyone he met, reluctant to discuss his past in any great amount of detail, and seemed as though he’d witnessed some sort of unspeakable cruelties if Tom had to judge, appearing older than one would expect the average fifth year to be.

His presence crept up on Tom like an annoying cough. Barely detectable at the beginning, he hovered around his Knights of Walpurgis. It wasn’t that strange for less popular Slytherins to orbit his group, and given that Harry was new, he didn’t yet know how things worked around their house yet. Completely justifiable, he thought. That is, until he found himself realising Harry was always around, had integrated himself into every hour of his day, not just in public spaces but private as well. As time went on, he found himself not just tolerating his presence but enjoying it, seeking it out when Harry wasn’t near.

Harry Potter was an orphan, similar to him, not even from a main branch of the new-money Potter family. He wasn’t a pureblood, and he had no particular talents beyond defense and Quidditch. Tom had no need for a friend in an auror or Quidditch seeker. He could immediately state all the benefits to his friendships with others in his house, whether they were of a noble bloodline, had ministry contacts, knew another important contact, whatever they may be. Harry Potter provided zero.

They disagreed fundamentally on most aspects of Tom’s future plans, Harry disagreeing quite brazenly and publicly at that. It induced Tom’s rage which he hid behind his perfectly manicured front. Behind closed doors however, he’d felt the temptation more than once to just scream at the boy. He never did, of course. He hadn’t done such a thing since he was a child, but the urge was there all the same. Harry, however, never hid how he felt, his heart on his sleeve. If Tom cared at all about Harry’s image or reputation, he’d tell him to learn to control himself better. 

There was something refreshing, however, in knowing that he was the cause of such emotional displays, at least, at first. Most Slytherins knew how to keep their own emotions under wraps, and Tom didn’t dare ruin his veneer of saintly Slytherin prefect to other houses. Harry seemed so _angry_ at everything Tom did, despite him not doing anything differently from how he had all throughout his Hogwarts career. At times, it reminded him of Dumbledore, to his dismay. Yet why did he still allow Harry to accompany him? Why did he enjoy his presence?

Harry mellowed over time. It was a gradual process, otherwise Tom may have made a comment to him. One day, he simply woke up and realised he couldn’t recall the last time Harry had been angry with him. Instead, the emotion seemed to be replaced with a melancholy whose aura was suffocating. Tom would have vastly preferred the anger, and purposefully did things he knew aggravated Harry in the past. In response, he would only be met with dead eyes and a sigh. No impassioned rebuttals.

Had he broken Harry Potter? For some reason, he couldn’t take pride in the fact. He found himself preferring the boy from before, who would challenge every word he said, who took such joy in simple things, with no great ambition or hidden agendas of his own, whose bleeding heart would someday be his own undoing.

Perhaps that was what had done it-- that overdeveloped sense of empathy and care. Tom had long since abandoned any sense of empathy that wasn’t used merely as a tool to better understand his enemies. He couldn’t remember the last time he cared for another person. Maybe some time, early in his childhood, he may have felt pity for another orphan, but that was a selfish emotion. Pity was another expression of his superiority over others, the thought “I’m glad this wasn’t me”.

What he felt for Harry wasn’t pity. It was frustration. He had come to terms with the fact he enjoyed the boy’s presence. Tom supposed he was one of the few people in the world whose presence he could enjoy for its own pleasure, rather than the external rewards that would come from enduring his friendship. That was fine. What wasn’t fine was that Harry was now seemingly upset, but not in the entertaining way. It occurred to Tom that maybe this was Harry truly upset, not the expressions of anger he had seen before.

And that was how Tom came to the conclusion that he had to, somehow, make Harry happy.

It was a deceptively simple-sounding task. He had large amounts of experience making people, whether classmates or professors, just happy enough in order to get whatever else he wanted out of them, but never for pure happiness’ sake. There was an additional problem in that Harry somehow saw through him just like Dumbledore, and wouldn’t fall for his typical manipulations. Maybe he could ramp them up to an eleven, but he feared if Harry caught on, he would have wasted his only opportunity, and the boy would trust him even less than he did before.

If he even knew what it was that made Harry unhappy, maybe he’d have a better time. But as the emotional descent had been gradual, he couldn’t pinpoint one specific action that caused Harry to behave differently. Harry disapproved of pureblood supremacy, yes. He disapproved of horcruxes and all manner of soul magic, yes. Tom didn’t even know how Harry had found out about all that, and had been enraged for a full week following the discovery that Harry somehow knew, exploring every possible avenue by which he could have found out, but had been unsuccessful. Tom also supposed Harry disapproved of his overall outlook on life, as he expected most people would. It was for that very reason that he hid it from most people. Most did not want to believe the world was selfish, that everything everyone did was selfish, that love and caring for others was misguided, and that it was a dog-eat-dog world. Harry, however, saw through his facade and knew where his true beliefs lied.

He considered for a moment that maybe Harry was coming to terms with a similar ideology, but dismissed it. Harry still expressed his disapproval at every opportunity, though not in such an inflamed manner as before. Subtle prodding and antagonizing wasn’t getting him anywhere, however. A new strategy was required if he wanted to make any headway with Harry, if he wanted to return to how things were. And so, Tom confronted him.

* * *

He wasn’t sure if that was the biggest mistake of his life or the best thing he could have ever done.

Harry was confused when he accosted him, petulant and assertive even. He prattled on passive-aggressively in a manner almost reminiscent of how he would speak to Tom before. This time, he regaled stories from Tom’s own life that he had no right nor means of knowing. Tom had never shared his experiences at Wool’s with Harry, nor his family background, nor his descent into the dark arts. Harry had no way of knowing, yet he did, to Tom’s frustration.

Tom interrogated him, both about his confounding knowledge and his recent behavior, in a fashion that was much too similar to begging for his own pride. 

Harry’s brows furrowed in confusion, and he gave Tom a hard, searching look. “Why do you care?”

Tom’s first thought was that he didn’t. He didn’t care. He never had and never would. His second instinct was to say he did care, as any good person would. His third emotion, a frantic creature clawing at the inside of his skin, sending discomfort down his spine, was just as confused as Harry looked.

For once, he’d be honest with another person, if he could only be honest with himself first. Harry would see through him like broken glass regardless. It would save upsetting him further with lies he would immediately acknowledge as such.

But what was the actual truth? Why did he care so much? Finally, he was acknowledging that was what this was-- caring for another person, for Harry. Nevermind the fact that it was selfish. He’d always known any care one person had for another would always be merely that. Never had he thought he would succumb to the notion of ‘caring’ for another, however.

Somehow, somewhere along the line, over the few months Harry had been at Hogwarts, Tom’s happiness had become linked with Harry’s. But why, why, _why_ had this happened? Tom placed no value in caring for others. What was it about Harry that had forced Tom, against both his will and better judgement, to care for him?

For once in his life, he was left speechless. As silence filled the air between them, the confusion in Harry’s eyes grew. Tom forced his words out. 

“I don’t know why,” he said just loud enough for Harry to hear him. “I don’t care to know why I care. All I know is that I do, and that something has changed but I cannot put my finger on it. I can’t put my finger on _you_ , Harry.”

Harry frowned and rose from where he had been sitting on his bed to sit next to Tom on his own bed. Their legs just barely touched.

“It wouldn’t do any good even telling you. It might make things worse in the end.” Harry shook his head, staring down at his lap in contemplation. “Sometimes it seems like you’re different, like you’ve changed somehow, like maybe I’ve gotten through to you. For all I know you could just be putting on an act, and I wouldn’t see the difference.”

 _No_ , he thought, but it was futile.

Harry continued. “If I told you, you might just use it against me in the future. Then where would we be? Where would I be?” A weak laugh.

Tom cleared his throat, and Harry looked up at him. Tom couldn’t tear his eyes away. “Still here,” he said. “Still hopelessly melancholic, with whatever is plaguing that mind of yours unspoken as if it isn’t affecting you and me alike.” He paused. “I’ve come to realise I enjoy your company, particularly when you aren’t having existential crises. I much prefer you yelling at me in comparison. Consequently, whatever is bothering you is bothering me as well. I figured I should have the right to know what it is, exactly.”

Harry laughed abruptly, and the instant afterward he seemed surprised at his own action, like a child caught with their hand in a cookie jar. He gave Tom an odd, searching look. “It’s such a ‘ _you’_ thing to make this about you instead of me.” He didn’t seem to be angry, however, his tone fond more than anything. Eventually his expression dropped. “If I told you what was wrong, what was bothering me, what would you do about it?”

“Get rid of it, whatever it is.” Simple, yet effective.

“But at what cost?”

Tom took a deep breath through his nose in anticipation. He was getting somewhere now. Harry had a problem that he couldn’t handle on his own. That much was obvious. And Tom, being the kind _friend_ he was would help him with any dirty work that may otherwise stain Harry’s righteous morals. The corner of his mouth twitched in a slight smirk. “For you, _anything_ ,” he purred, leaning in closer to Harry, an arm moving to cage him in.

“Someone wants me dead,” Harry whispered slowly and looked Tom up and down. “Someday, he’s going to try to kill me.”

“Not if I killed him first.” Tom licked his lips, eyes flashing. His fingers reached out to stroke Harry’s wrist, ever so softly.

Harry gave a weak smile. “I don’t think you can kill him, Tom.”

“Don’t underestimate me--”

It was then that Harry carefully took off his glasses, placing them on Tom’s bedside table. Tom stopped speaking, carefully watching the other boy, until Harry turned and pushed Tom flat on his back in the middle of his bed. Tom initially tensed before relaxing as Harry leaned over him, gazing into his eyes.

“Read my mind.”

Tom didn’t need any further push to cast a silent, wandless _legilimens_ on him. He stared into Harry’s eyes, falling and falling and falling into an emerald sea, until he landed where Harry apparently wanted him to be, at the very forefront of his mind-- in an ocean of memories.

* * *

A cupboard. A letter. The whispers, the fame at being called “The Boy Who Lived,” the origin story behind the title. The train to Hogwarts. The sorting hat yelling “Gryffindor!” for all to hear. A turban slowly unravelling to expose a deformed face, commanding Harry to give him the Philosopher’s Stone. Defeat.

The diary. His own diary, locked away in his trunk at that very moment, untainted, but tainted in this future memory. The Chamber of Secrets he’d tried so hard to find, but hadn’t yet discovered. There he was, a memory of himself as he was in the future. Defeat.

The World Cup. The Triwizard Tournament. The grave of his father who he had never met, but would apparently kill in the future. A bubbling cauldron, giving birth to a resurrected Lord Voldemort. What he would become. Harry’s role in his death. Harry’s escape. Defeat.

The nightmares. The Department of Mysteries. The guilt, the anger. The prophecy.

The memories of Tom Riddle, only a few months or years older, doing things Tom had yet to do in his life but could easily see himself doing. The disgust at his mother, at his father, at his other relatives, at Dumbledore, and most of all, at himself. The locket. The death of Dumbledore.

The search for the horcruxes. The final battle. The walk to the death in the Forbidden Forest. 

Limbo. Defeat.

An unassuming package delivered to Grimmauld Place, containing a golden pocket-watch, sending Harry falling and falling and falling through time until he landed right on Hogwarts’ doorstep in the year 1942--

Before Tom had opened the Chamber of Secrets. Before the basilisk murdered Myrtle Warren. Before the creation of the diary horcrux. Before Tom murdered the Riddles, before the creation of the ring horcrux. Before everything started to go downhill, it seemed.

* * *

Tom emerged from Harry’s mind like a man drowning, drinking in the air with labored breaths and a pounding heart. Harry lied next to him, a troubled expression on his face like grey clouds overcast. Tom half-expected tears to start trailing down from his eyes. 

It made sense in retrospect that Harry was from the future, but the discovery was devastating nonetheless. Or rather, the nature of the future was more devastating than anything else. It was a future tainted by Tom’s-- Lord Voldemort’s-- actions.

He was the one who had tried to kill Harry, who wanted him dead. He was the one who had made him so depressed, so upset, so lacking life, and all for a prophecy that he himself fulfilled. And what had he said, just moments before? He would get rid of the cause of Harry’s pain at any cost. He would kill if he had to.

He couldn’t believe that that future would ever be acceptable to him. Tom didn’t know how much had changed between now and the future in his mind to cause him to believe everything was fine the way it was or was going to be. Maybe it was the horcruxes, as Dumbledore had speculated, though he hated to admit it. Regardless, he’d find a new method of immortality, one that wouldn’t corrupt his mind in the process. That would work.

The only way to move on now, to prevent his defeat, was to adapt, and Tom’s plans were flexible, if not anything else.

But what of the prophecy that led him to think of harming Harry-- _his Harry_ that he’d grown excessively fond of, that he’d grown to care for against his own will? if he simply ignored it, if he didn’t mark Harry as his equal, then that meant the prophecy wouldn’t be fulfilled, and Harry could never defeat him. If he ignored it, perhaps they could live their lives as if that future would never happen.

“I want a future where you and I can be happy, living our lives together,” he said after a moment. “Not the insanity you’ve lived through before coming to me today. I refuse to become _that_.” His jaw stiffened as he grit his teeth.

Harry gave him a sad smile. “I wish that were true. I wish I could believe you.”

“If you didn’t believe me capable of-- of whatever this is, why did you even show me? To taunt me? To hold it over my head?”

He shook his head. “It’s selfish to expect you to change for me. I don’t have the right. I don’t know what I was expecting. I just hoped--”

“Complete stasis is impossible just the same. I am not the Dark Lord of your future, today. But I am no longer the same as I was before I met you, for better or worse. If you hadn’t appeared when you did, half of my soul would now be in my diary rather than still in my body. Now that I’ve seen the future, of course it won’t happen the same as it did before. Maybe I’ve changed, but not for the reasons you hoped I would.” Tom’s throat felt dry.

Harry swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. “I don’t want to kill you, Tom. I don’t want to have to. Deep down, I know you’re capable of so many great things, and you could do so much for the world if you put your mind to it. But you’re also capable of just as many bad things, and I don’t want you to kill me either.”

Good, bad, it all seemed so relative. Tom didn’t have the sense to distinguish between the two, besides what he knew to be publicly acceptable. It didn’t come easily to him.

“I won’t. I can’t anymore, knowing it’s suicide and what it will lead to. ”

Maybe it would be easier with Harry here, to prevent him from being his own undoing. He couldn’t die. If a single horcrux led to making multiple horcruxes which led to his insanity which led to his premature death, then he couldn’t chance making a single horcrux. There must be another way to secure his immortality, perhaps with Harry by his side.

“I want to trust you, Tom. I just don’t know if I can,” Harry said, and Tom felt something deep within him burn.

It reminded him of the times he’d gotten food poisoning at Wools’, when they’d been forced to eat long since expired war-time rations, and he’d thrown up seemingly everything in his twelve year old body, leaving him exhausted and hollow and frustrated. Only now, a slight tremor twitched in the muscles of his hands, and his anger didn’t rest with muggles.

He didn’t linger on the feeling. Soon, his mind flitted to his next obstacle and how to overcome it. How did he get Harry to trust him? Another thing that may have been easy if it had been anyone but Harry. Think, think, _think_ \--

As he ran through the possibilities in his head, soon he found he was dismissing every single one. No, that wouldn’t work on Harry, he’d see through it, it would hurt him, and Tom would feel guilty. Guilt wasn’t a feeling he was very familiar with. He didn’t know how to fix it. Logically, he knew guilt was a form of regret. He had very few regrets. Regret was a pointless emotion, because one couldn’t change the past--

Unless you had a time-turner, apparently. But Tom didn’t have one, and all he could do was vow to do things differently in the future, if Harry would believe him. That was the crux of the problem, however. His own past actions, as well as future ones, had led Harry to the rightful conclusion that Tom was untrustworthy.

“I understand,” he breathed with a sigh. “And I regret what has led you to such a feeling. Though I wish we could start over.”

Harry froze for a moment, before his hand snuck its way over to Tom’s and held it gently. “I don’t know if we ever could, Tom.”

A memory charm could make quick work of starting over, Tom thought impulsively, but dismissed it. No. If he was going to do anything involving Harry, he had to do it right. Taking shortcuts only seemed to bite him in the arse later on, whether it was days, weeks, years, or decades in the future.

Tom squeezed Harry’s hand, which was warm and pleasant around his own. He looked down at it with a puzzled expression. He supposed this was why so many his age sought out physical contact with one another. It really wasn’t all that bad with Harry, as opposed to his other peers. 

He leaned his head into Harry’s chest, bringing them closer together, and Harry wrapped an arm around him. His embrace was comforting in a way that Tom had never felt before. It almost calmed the strange cocktail of emotions twisting within his stomach at that moment. Almost.

Harry seemed oblivious to the torment Tom was going through, and merely held his hand, stroking his hair with his other. Tom’s eyes quickly fell shut.

It was then that Tom made a startling realisation. The moment the thought occurred to him, a pit formed in his stomach, full of dread. His face heated in a blush against his own will. His hand that was currently laced with Harry’s twitched, and when he opened his eyes, he found the other boy looking at him with those treacherously deep emerald eyes that he found much too easy to drown in.

Tom stared unabashedly at Harry, who also blushed under his gaze. Never had he thought this could ever happen. He had thought himself above such a thing. But he supposed this was only a step above ‘caring’ for someone, after all. Maybe it was inevitable, with the way things were going now.

Tom leaned forward on his elbows until he was face to face with Harry, their chests touching. He put his hand on his hip experimentally. Harry was so close now that Tom could see every pore on his tanned skin, every speck of color in his irises, the soft, pink pigmentation of his lips--

He hadn’t realised their faces had been inching closer and closer together until their lips touched, and Tom could feel Harry’s breath intermingle with his. Harry’s lips were as soft in touch as they’d looked. Seconds passed before Harry slowly started moving his lips against Tom’s, and Tom returned the motion. He couldn’t help but sigh at the pleasant sensation as they slowly kissed, and a calm mellowed over him, soothing the butterflies in his chest.

Tom withdrew, and Harry leaned forward for a moment, heavy-lidded in what Tom guessed was an attempt to chase after him. A fond smile overtook his face as he whispered under his breath. 

"I love you. And I don’t care if it takes all the time in the world for me to prove it to you."

The moment the words left his mouth, the moment Harry's face lit up in a pleasant sort of surprise, and his plush, kissable lips moved to say something in return, perhaps an “I love you, too”, Tom hoped, anxious in anticipation like an eager schoolgirl--

He saw and felt him vanish. 

* * *

He blinked, and Harry was gone as if he had never been there to begin with. His warmth beside Tom was gone. Tom felt frantically around the bed, where Harry had been putting his weight. There were no indents where Harry had been lying. He quickly got out of bed, ripping the curtains open. Harry’s shoes were no longer on the floor beside the bed, his round glasses no longer sitting innocuously on Tom’s bedside table. 

No.

He looked at the bed next to his own in their dorm room. Harry’s bed stood, curtains undrawn, blankets and pillows neatly made, as if no one had slept there in a long time. No trunk sat at the end on the floor.

Such a thing was surely impossible.

Tom rushed to the common room, questioning the first person unlucky enough to meet his gaze. “Where’s Harry?” he demanded.

Abraxas Malfoy gave him an incredulous look. “Harry who?” he asked, despite having just argued with Harry that morning about the magical ability of muggleborns.

Tom let the door slam behind him as he continued out of the dungeons. Any groups of students who he might have run in to parted for him, as his deceptively self-assured appearing footsteps led him to one particular professor’s office. He tried the doorknob, which was locked, and pounded relentlessly against the door.

When the door finally opened, and Dumbledore stood in its opening, demanding to know what the meaning of Tom’s intrusion was, Tom barged past the older man and began pacing across his office.

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“You did something, didn’t you-- You always do.” Tom ran his fingers through his hair, disheveling it. “You’ve had it out for me since the day we met. You found out, somehow, and you couldn’t let me have one thing-- _one thing_. You sent him to his death in the future, of course you’ll do it now--”

“Mr. Riddle.” Dumbledore’s voice boomed, stopping Tom in his tracks. “Explain yourself immediately, before I fetch your head of house.”

Tom’s glare could burn holes through steel, but Dumbledore was unaffected. This only served to make Tom angrier, and his malice dripped venomously from his words. “He’s gone.”

“Who is gone?”

“Harry Potter.”

Dumbledore’s eyes softened. “I am not familiar with any ‘Harry Potter’s, Tom. Of whom do you speak?”

It wasn’t a coincidence. Sure, Dumbledore and Malfoy may lie to him separately, but never in agreement. Harry Potter no longer existed in this time, removed from the minds of everyone. Everyone but Tom. The question was _why_? Why Tom? Why now?

Tom looked back at Dumbledore until he met those twinkling eyes once more. He broke their eye contact, internally debating with himself on how much information to give the man.

“Harry Potter was a transfer student this year. From a future timeline. At least he was, until he disappeared,” he spat bitterly.

Dumbledore cocked his head. “I shall admit, that was not the answer I was expecting.” He strode over to his heavy wooden desk and sat at his chair. “Please, take a seat, Tom.”

Tom didn’t entertain his request and simply continued standing, sullen and silent.

“Or you may remain standing, if you so wish,” Dumbledore said genially. “I’m sure if such an event did happen, then it would be quite disquieting to the average person. It’s no wonder you’re so restless.”

And there he went already, assuming Tom was a liar. 

“I want to know where he went.”

A chirping noise interrupted their conversation, drawing Tom’s eyes to the grey chick perched off to one side on a golden stand. 

Dumbledore rose from his chair and walked over to Fawkes. He stood and stroked gently at the phoenix’s dull, ashy feathers. “Has it occurred to you that perhaps this Harry Potter left of his own volition?”

Tom grimaced, still staring at the phoenix. “No. He wouldn’t have wanted to leave. We were--” How should he phrase it-- “In the middle of something, something important.” That wasn’t a lie. It was a very important conversation, at least in Tom’s eyes.

Harry couldn’t have possibly chosen right then and there to leave. He wouldn’t do that.

“I see. Tell me, do you know how far from the future he came from? I daren’t ask for any other information, for fear of learning too much, but a year should be relatively harmless.”

“1998.” The year of Lord Voldemort’s defeat. “He arrived at the beginning of this school year.”

“That is most curious. As you may already know, ministry issued time-turners can only go back five hours or so. Only retrograde time-travel is possible, and one must live out time once more in order to return to the point at which they first time-travelled. Going back so many decades would require a tremendous amount of power, though perhaps magical research has advanced to the point in 1998 where such a thing is possible.” Dumbledore’s eyes sparkled. “Though I imagine even if that were so, the restrictions would be rigorous at best and stifling at worst. Otherwise, I would ask where all the other time-travellers from the future are today.”

Dumbledore didn’t even know how right he was, in that moment, Tom thought while shaking his head. All the souls who may have decided for themselves that Voldemort must be taken out before the start of the Wizarding War. Maybe he would have been killed as a baby in that case, if someone were to find out Lord Voldemort’s younger self’s identity.

“He didn’t know how it happened exactly,” Tom clarified. “Someone mailed him what looked like a time-turner, which brought him back against his will. But that’s beside the point. I need to find him again now, and not in the year 1998.” He didn’t know what would happen in the meantime. He didn’t want to think of what he might do, what might happen to him without Harry by his side.

“Do you know why the ministry does not typically fabricate time-turners that travel more than five hours in the past, Tom?” Dumbledore paused, waiting for a response that Tom didn’t give, before continuing on.

“It is Professor Croaker’s law that dictates that that is the longest period of time that one may go back without seriously endangering both themselves and the fabric of time itself. We know so little about time and how it operates, any meddling whatsoever may bring unforeseen consequences. Now, that isn’t to say there aren’t numerous theories of possible consequences, but they remain theories until they are tested. What I find absolutely fascinating, however, is how long this boy remained in our time _without_ disappearing.”

“You think this is somehow normal?” Tom’s voice raised precariously.

“Allow me to explain. There is one known case of a witch travelling back in time roughly four-hundred years for a span of five days. In the process, whatever minute actions she took during that time caused twenty-five people to be unborn when she finally returned to her own time, all descendents of those she had met while back in time. And that was only five days. Of course, she may have had a greater impact due to having gone so far back in time. Your Harry only travelled back perhaps fifty years, but instead of staying for five days, he stayed for five months. And if what you have told me is true, Tom, then the answer may be simpler than you think.”

Tom blinked. “He changed the future enough through what he did here and now that whatever caused him to get transported back simply didn’t happen again.”

Dumbledore smiled, ever so slightly. “Perhaps time has a way of self-correcting itself so that these types of paradoxes don’t happen. Though that does not explain why you remember his existence, and no one else he encountered does.”

Tom narrowed his eyes. “I watched him disappear right in front of me,” he said flatly.

“I suppose that might do it. There is another possibility, as well, one much more bleak,” said Dumbledore. “Have you ever heard of the Grandfather’s paradox?”

Enough with the inane questions that only served to irritate him further, Tom thought. At another time, he would have appreciated this as a learning opportunity, but he was a Slytherin not a Ravenclaw. All that mattered right now was getting Harry back. “No,” Tom said, with an unspoken _‘Just get to the point.’_

“It is a muggle proposition that may hold some weight.” Dumbledore gave Tom a pointed look as he returned back to his desk and sat down once more. “Imagine the case where a time-traveller should go back in time and kill their own grandfather. Logically, they would never be born. However, if they were never born, then the question arises of who would have killed the grandfather to begin with.”

“Then if Harry somehow did something that had enough of an impact on the future that he wouldn’t be born, you’re saying a paradox would occur,” said Tom slowly, and Dumbledore nodded. “And given we don’t know how time treats paradoxes, he may have disappeared in order to maintain some type of continuity. But that doesn’t tell me how to get him _back here_ \--” While Dumbledore’s information did shed some light, Tom was beginning to regret coming to the man. He’d only given him further ammunition against him and no actual means of fixing his problem: Harry’s disappearance.

“That’s not the only possibility of course,” Dumbledore conceded. “The first, that he merely did something to prevent his first encounter with the time-travel magic that brought him here in the first place, is more feasible. The result of the paradox, it would seem, would be that he simply vanished from this time. However, if no one can remember his presence but you, the only conclusion I can make is that he has influenced you in some way that has directly changed the course of his own life in the future.”

And there it was, like a bucket of cold water being poured over him that very moment, leaving him frozen where he stood. It was his fault. 

He knew Harry had changed him somehow. Just the presence of a new person would do that, would change history slightly somehow through a ripple effect. It made sense when he thought about it. He would no longer pursue the prophecy and attempt to kill Harry that Halloween night in Godric’s Hollow, marking him as his equal. This would go on to change the course of Harry’s entire life. He would never grow up as “The Boy Who Lived.” Regardless of whether Tom became a Dark Lord or not, Harry would never be tasked with destroying him. Harry would never be the one to destroy him. Perhaps he wouldn’t need to be destroyed. He couldn’t foresee the future after all. And in a world where Harry Potter was not the Boy Who Lived and would never defeat Lord Voldemort, perhaps no one would send him the very time-turner that brought him to Tom in the year 1942.

And it all began with the moment he confessed his love. Love, love, love-- the frivolous ideal that he’d finally felt against all odds. He refused to fall victim to it, however. Not like his peers, society, and his mother, no--

He would fix this, whatever the cost.


End file.
